Anyone that is looking to create a Quarter Mile Camaro or Firebird can start with these free modifications to put them on the track to pulling off strong, consistent passes at the drag strip. Some of these may affect everyday drive-ability and comfort but mixing and matching these techniques could save you quite a bit of money and shave some precious time off your ET.

Free stuff:

Remove weight

front sway bar should be the first thing to go.

rear seats

brace above the panhard bar

rear speakers and bose/amp if you have one…..i leave the front speakers in because you still need some tunes.

front bumper supports–this is up to you–it’s under the rubber/urethane front end part, weighs about 15-20lbs right on the nose. HOWEVER, you hit something and you will do lots of damage to the car.

rear bumper supports–again, up to you–about 15 lbs

door bars–very hard to remove weigh 9lbs apiece, don’t get t-boned or you will get hurt.

cruise control module

A/C stuff–you will need to buy the A/C delete pulley kit (65 bucks) for the removal of the compressor, otherwise you can just remove the condenser in front of the radiator

carpet and sound deadener–total is around 35lbs. You can take it out and scrape the sound deadener off, it will shed about 10lbs.

spare tire/jack–15lbs

mat under rear hatch area–it’s right under the carpet in the back, it’s about 7-10lbs

dash–under the dash attached to the firewall is a heavy rubber mat, about 10-15lbs. It will require a lot of effort to remove and the car will be louder/hotter inside.

Get out your sawsall or cut-off wheel–there will be lots of little brackets and stuff that aren’t needed ie:spare tire bracket–get an egg box and toss these things in there as you remove them. They add up quickly. There is a big section under each front fender you can remove with a sawsall, takes off about 7-8lbs each side all off of the front end, totally hidden from view.

I’ll add to this as I remember stuff, but thats about most of the free stuff to remove

Free HP:
unhook your exhaust after the cat-converter. Take a long breaker bar and hammer it into the cat breaking loose all of the material inside. Try to scrape it out with a long screwdriver. If you can’t get it all out, fire the car up for a second, it will blow it out. Should take about 30 minutes to do. Re-connect the exhaust, the car will sound great, and pick up 3-4hp.

TB bypass–there are 2 coolant lines going into the throttle body. They pump hot coolant into it so that the throttle blades don’t freeze up in cold weather conditions. This is no good for a drag car. Simply unhook eack of them, and get a piece of 8-10″ heater hose and 2 fitting and connect them to each other, done. Now only outside air will be touching the tb.

3900ohm resistor. Go to radio shack and ask the geek that works there that you need one. They only come in packs of 10 if I remember correctly. Pop the hood and find the computer by the windshield up by the passenger side. There will be a small bundle of wires going down the passenger side fenderwell towards the starter. Look in the loom and grab the blue wire. The blue wire goes to the knock sensor. Cut that wire as far down as you can and then pull it away from the loom. Connect the end of the wire to the 3900ohm resistor and then the other end of the resistor to a chassis ground. When the computer sees 3900ohms of resistance from that wire it is aware that the knock sensor is functioning perfectly AND that it is not detecting any knock. Make sure you run premium gas after doing this because your car will not have the ability to detect detonation.

Thats all the free stuff I can think of. Basically you can take out 250lbs out in 1 day and add about 5-10hp. A good running car can hit 13.99′s with this done.